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Attaching a car seat to a buggy

Buying a car seat? With a travel system, you will find there are three main ways for the car seat to attach to the buggy...

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Adaptors

Some car seats and buggies require you to purchase an adaptor or set of adaptors, which are usually sold separately. The adaptors fit on to the buggy chassis (frame) independently before allowing the car seat to attach.

Sometimes, a buggy and car seat of the same brand will require you to use adaptors to create a travel system. Often though, adaptors mean you could team popular car seats with a buggy of a different make, giving you a greater car seat choice.

The down side of adaptors is they often have to be purchased as an extra, and they mean there’s an extra bit of equipment to put together or lose when not in use.

On to the buggy chassis

Some car seats click and lock directly onto a buggy’s chassis, once you’ve removed the buggy seat or carrycot. With this design, the car seat can feel particularly secure, locked on.

Different brands have different names for this - Britax calls it CLICK & GO, Jané refers to it as its Pro-Fix system.

The good thing about attaching directly to the frame is you can just take the buggy chassis with you, leaving more room in the car for your shopping! But of course, you’ll need to take the seat/carrycot with you if you plan to use the buggy in its other modes wherever you’re heading.

On to the buggy

Some car seats on the market do not attach directly onto the chassis, but fit onto the buggy, with its seat unit still in place. Basically, you take yourcar seat out of the vehicle and place it on top of the buggy’s seat. With some Graco models, for example, the car seat has a hook on the outside of its shell that attaches the front bumper bar/play tray. With Hauck’s Condor All In One, you squeeze buttons of the bumper bar to pop up little adaptors on each side, plus the car seat’s outer shell is shaped to sit on the bumper.

There is no need to remove another part of the system. In many ways this makes it easier, because once you take the car seat off, your buggy is ready to go. However, you will have a lot more weight to push around than with the options that see the buggy seat removed.

This method offers an equally secure connection as to one where the car seat clicks onto the chassis.